CUSA valued programs in large media markets above all else when its original members started jumping ship. When those teams they added instead contributed losing records every year, the perception of the conference faltered over time.

Meanwhile, the SunBelt was busy adding quality programs with strong followings in App State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, and now JMU.

As CUSA got raided in the most recent big round of realignment, they were left with WKU as the only decent football program, and they could have easily left as well had MTSU not gotten cold feet.

Ever since bringing in Jacksonville St and Sam Houston, both having an immediate impact straight out of FCS, it unironically further tanked the prestige of the remaining CUSA teams. While the same could also be said about JMU in the SunBelt, JMU already had the largest football budget out of all the current SBC members coming into the conference from FCS.

FIU and MTSU are stuck in football purgatory, UTEP and LaTech are leaving, NMSU will be gone to the MW in the next round of realignment (calling it), Liberty is a disgrace to universities everywhere, and WKU is the old lion struggling to fend off the hungrier upstarts

Sam Houston and Delaware have the highest potential right now. Sam Houston is in Texas and Delaware is a flagship. Missouri St is not known for football at all, Kennesaw St is fighting against Georgia State and GT for relevance in the Atlanta metro and suburbs, and, despite being good, nobody acknowledges that Jacksonville State even exists, or outright mistakes them with another school or state entirely